October 30, 2025 • 52 mins
Is it possible to discuss politics without being divisive? Hats off to Mike Newcome who is trying his best to run a campaign for Governor dominated with kindness. The fact is, we tried...really hard. It might not be possible. Based on some listener feedback, we have edited out some regretful dialogue and hope that someone like Mike can be an example of the kind of politician the country seems to need.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
We are being rewarded for beingdivision entrepreneurs.
The better you are at innovatinga new way to be divisive, we
will pay you in more likes,followers, and reach.
Welcome to the KindnessChronicles.
Woo.
A apolitical politicalconversation heading your way.
(00:33):
What do we do here?
We're hoping to give the world adose of the Minnesota kindness
that it desperately needs, andwe're gonna be talking about
Minnesota politics without beingpolitical.
Is that possible?
But first, we're gonna find outif we can.
Let's see.
Yeah, let's see.
We're gonna see if we can, We'vegot, Jeff Hoffman.
Hi Jeff.
Welcome.
Thank you.
The welcome to me, I guess.
(00:54):
Welcome to you Steve Brown.
Hi.
Hi.
Steve Kgs on assignment.
He's working, or actually thinkhe's at movie club tonight or
something.
Michael's in Austin.
Our guest, Mike Newcomb, we'regonna call him in here in just a
second.
I have to tell you about myweekend because let's hear.
It was extraordinary.
So Friday night I got to go tothe opening of the Lee and Penny
(01:16):
Anderson, Arena at St.
Thomas.
The brand new hockey andbasketball venue, absolutely
incredible.
I think it's a 5,000 seat, venueand my goodness, they did it
right.
Where is it?
It's right on the St.
Thomas campus.
Oh, neat.
Yep.
South part of the campus.
It's Spanky News, sparkly clean,beautiful, sparkly clean,
(01:36):
stunning architecture'sbeautiful.
I'm sure the architecture'samazing.
The sound system is incredible.
My favorite part of the wholeevent though, and I talked to a
couple of their fundraising guysafterwards.
The, uh, Lee and Penny came outand dropped the puck for the
boys, uh, the men's game.
And he's a guy that we shouldknow.
We should know Lee.
Everybody should know LeeAnderson.
He's a hockey.
(01:57):
No.
Lee Anderson is, no, he's theguy that he and his wife donated
$75 million to get this done.
Cool.
Anyway.
They're walking off afterdropping the puck and the, the,
the student section startchanting Lee and Penny.
Ah, and I mean they had the, thecrowd that's was just going
wild.
And it wasn't set up like that.
(02:19):
Those students did it organic ontheir own.
Organic.
It was organic.
And the guy who was likeresponsible for raising the
majority of the money.
Came up and talked.
I was there with Kevin Gorg and,uh, my son Ben, and then Mark
Macey, who's a good buddy ofours, and he said, I couldn't
have scripted that any better.
He said, we hadn't even thoughtof that.
That's awesome.
Of course.
And they started chanting Leeand Penny.
(02:40):
I mean, what, you know, what,how cool does that feel for that
guy that's, and how cool does itfeel?
To be a St.
Thomas alum.
Yeah.
Being able to see that those arethe, that's what the fact that
those students had thewherewithal in the sense, yeah.
To cheer those people on gave megoosebumps.
That's cool.
Really cool.
But what really gave megoosebumps Yeah.
Was Saturday night I got to goto the hope for Helen Gala.
(03:02):
Yeah.
And when I tell you that one ofour guests, Dan, recent guests,
Dan and Stephanie My goodness,did they kill it?
I go to a lot of these eventsand this was the first time that
they did one of these events.
It was stunning.
It was incredible.
They raised hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
Good.
They had, two of the Universityof Minnesota, PhD scientists.
(03:26):
Our friend Dr.
Brandon Moriarty.
Yeah, I saw the photos onLinkedIn.
Oh.
So yeah.
Super cool.
So Brandon.
So Brandon listened to ourpodcast and he said, Hey, I
heard you talking about my hair.
I said, I was complimentaryabout your hair.
You know, I said, I'm jealous ofyour hairline.
But they gave a presentation andjust talked about how they're
taking some of the things thatthey have discovered while at
(03:48):
the Masonic Cancer Center.
They're applying them to theseother rare diseases, these rare
ailments, and it's all aboutgenetic.
Uh, I don't know.
I can't even talk about it.
There's, it's just they'remaking strides.
They're making strides.
That's fantastic.
But I ran into Brandon after theevent out in the parking lot and
I said, you know what?
(04:08):
I have decided that you aredefinitely smarter than me.
And he goes.
I think you're probably right.
So I'm not sure.
He seems very reminds me of yourpremed test that you had in
biology.
I struggled, uh, I struggled.
You know, went, became amarketing major.
That's right.
'cause that's where people likeme belong.
That's right.
Wow.
What a people.
(04:28):
Yeah.
You you have a jam packed, uh,weekend often, like so many
events you go to Sunday morning,I can't keep up.
I know.
Sunday morning I went up, uh, Igot up and went up to our, our
pillars brunch for.
Our big donors up in Duluth.
I'm tired.
You're eating.
You are.
You're all over.
Yeah.
You're getting these fancymeals.
Every, every, every meal.
Rubber chicken.
Rubber chicken.
Oh.
But actually the meal atHazeltine was fantastic.
(04:51):
I sure it was.
And actually the, uh, the brunchthat we had, uh, yesterday
morning was lovely enough aboutfood.
Right.
Speaking of guys, yeah.
Do you guys have anything elsethat you need to add about your
weekends?
Didn't do a whole lot.
Great.
I watched my wife run a raceThat was really cool.
In Wisconsin.
Did you win sson?
You know, she's a winner.
She's a winner.
Oh boy.
You're good.
(05:11):
She's a winner.
How about you, Steve?
Do you do anything?
I did a lot of, still, I'm stillunpacking in White Bear.
I'm a recent White Bearresident.
Uh, and yeah, and, uh, and Ispent some time, we, we
winterized my mom's house onSunday, so it was nice of you,
Steve.
Very nice by the way.
Your mother sent me the mostlovely, uh, sympathy card.
(05:32):
Oh, yep.
That's Ronnie for the passing ofmy dad.
What a woman.
Oh my gosh.
You're, she knows that yourmom's going through.
Talk about the KindnessChronicles right there.
She's living it.
Yep.
Yeah.
We'll talk about that anotherday.
Yeah.
We have a very, very specialguest in with us.
Yeah, we do.
This gentleman, we've, uh, hadhim on the podcast before.
Briefly.
He was, uh, overshadowed by acouple of young ladies from
(05:53):
Ukraine who truly stole theshow.
Yeah.
But, uh, this guy is a guy that,uh, graduated from, uh, high
school a year between you and I,Steve.
Mm-hmm.
Um, didn't make it all the wayto the end at Hill Murray.
Something happened and he endedup at White Bear, and we won't
talk about it.
Was his per, it was hispersonality.
(06:13):
It was too overwhelming for the,uh, the nuns or something.
But, uh, some stars shine alittle brighter, John.
Absolutely.
Well, this guy, our friend, MikeNewcomb.
Welcome back, Mike.
Thank you.
And Mike has decided, you knowwhat, I'm looking for something
to do.
Why don't I just fix theproblems of the state of
Minnesota and run for governor?
(06:35):
Yeah.
Easy.
It seems like a, you know, what,what are you doing next week,
governor?
I'm running for Governor.
Governor.
Governor, you know.
Wow.
Don't wanna run for school boardor city council.
Let's just go straight for thegovernor.
That's right's.
What we think, aim high, bigthinker.
But what I love about this, andwe have tried really hard to
stay away from politics.
You know, we each have our,political, uh, well, it's, we're
(06:56):
inundated all the time.
That's not what we're trying todo here.
We're not trying to do that, andwe are inundated with it.
But I think that thisconversation is truly a kindness
chronicles level.
Political campaign that is gonnabe run by our friend Mike.
Well, let's, yeah, let's hearthat.
And I met with him a couple ofweeks ago and we talked about
this, and I find him to beprobably the most apolitical,
(07:19):
aspiring politician that I'veever connected with.
just looking forward to hearinga little bit about your campaign
and what your objective is and,uh, why, why now, and why, why
did you decide to do this?
Like, give us the scoop and tellus, and welcome.
I welcome, uh, first of all,thank you.
And thank you for theintroduction and thanks for
having me on again.
Uh, I've been asked thatquestion probably a hundred
(07:42):
times, Uhhuh, and it's a twopart question.
So why run for governor and whynow?
The why now really came about.
For, for two reasons.
A handful of weeks ago we hadour young Ukrainian women.
Mm-hmm.
On your podcast?
Yep.
Probably the most inspiring, uh,people I've ever met in my life,
(08:03):
really.
And we'd sit around the kitchentable every single night and
we'd have conversations and we'dtalk about the war in Ukraine,
and we'd talk about America andthey'd talk about what they'd
see on the news, and they wouldtalk about politics in Ukraine.
And I talk about politics.
In America and we would talk andI'd be very forthright with them
(08:26):
about, you know, every systemhas their pros and every system
has their cons.
And, and they just, they keptsaying to me, oh, well, we're
going to be positive agents forchange in Ukraine when this
war's over.
We're gonna be a positive agentfor change.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Yeah.
And I kept thinking, oh, that'sso inspiring.
Yeah.
These 16-year-old girls Yeah.
Who are living through a warhave already decided that
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they're gonna be a positiveagent for change.
And I was just, I was, I'mwatching the news, I'm seeing
everything that's out there.
And I said, Hey, wait a minute.
Why can't I be a positive agentfor change?
These girls are inspiring you.
A a hundred percent 16-year-oldgirls are telling you, showing
you the way.
That's cool.
They, they, they actually, theyactually showed me a, a
(09:11):
humility.
I was embarrassed of myself tonot be so aware that we could
make, be these positive agents achange.
Yeah.
So wait a second.
Four weeks ago or whenever theywere in here, you weren't
thinking about running forgovernor at that point I had.
So like all of us, we alwaysthink we can see and be like, I
can do better than that.
Mm-hmm.
I can do better than that.
But the short answer is no.
(09:32):
Wow.
I wasn't, I was living a greatlife.
You've gotten a lot accomplishedin four weeks.
Well, uh, I wanna tell you.
I I can.
That's, so you said it was a twopart answer.
So one of them is you'reinspired by the, so I was
inspired, I mean, it's really athree part answer and I was also
inspired, and it's what made mereach out to John months and
months and months and months agobecause of the Kindness
Chronicles.
And I said, what a great show.
(09:54):
You're, you're here focusing on.
Thank you.
Good people agree.
No.
And I said, I'm not gonnapatronize you.
But again, I, I'm patronizeaway, patronize, patronize.
I'm as sincere as possible.
I love the fact that there'sother Minnesotans that say All
this noise is just noise.
We need to focus on what realMinnesotans are doing.
(10:15):
And usually we're all doinggreat things, kind things.
And you know, when.
Anytime I would see the negativestuff, I'd kind of turn it off
because it just poisons our, ourbrains.
Yeah.
And then, so that was the other,you know, kind of inspiration,
the Kindness Chronicles.
I've categorized my campaigns.
It's gonna be the KindnessChronicle campaign.
(10:37):
We're not gonna, we're notgonna, uh.
Call people names and we're notgonna do the blame game.
We're gonna talk about facts andwe're gonna have a campaign of
substance.
I'm afraid the KindnessChronicles has been trade
trademarked, taken.
I'm sorry.
And, uh, we'll have tonegotiate.
There's some royalties probably.
But Mike, I do remember when youwere here the last time
specifically, and I can'tremember if we were recording.
(10:58):
I think we were, but you, uh,you said there's a lot of people
moving out of Minnesota becauseof the politics, and the only
way we're gonna take our stateback or change it for the better
is staying in.
Dealing with the problems, and Ithought, wow, he's actually
putting his money where hismouth is Now.
When John had told us about youcoming today, a a lot of my
(11:18):
friends said we're, we're movingoutta the state.
And it's not as though they wereDemocrats or Republicans.
They were just felt that thetemperature in the state, not
the air temperature right, butthe tone in the temperature in
the state changed from what itused to be in Minnesota without
question.
And the, so the third part isreal simple.
I'm a firm believer that we nolonger have a government that is
(11:41):
by the people and for thepeople.
It's now by the parties andtheir special interest and for
the parties and their specialinterests.
And once I recognize that, itkind of freed my mind to say.
This is broken, and when I talkto more and more Minnesotans, so
I made this announcement thatI'm seeking the endorsement for
(12:04):
the Forward Independence party.
And I, uh, on the video, howdoes that process work real
quick?
So, you know, they're a, they'rea minor party, so you have your
Republicans and you have yourDemocrats, and this was the
outcropping of when JesseVentura was governor.
This actually is the party thatcame out of Ross Perot, 1992.
If any, if you old folks areout, out there like me, and
(12:25):
remember that.
But it's a third party movementthat's kind of morphed itself
from an independence party to areform party, and now they've
kind of standardized on theforward party, meaning we need
to move stuff forward.
And their platform is simple.
You can go to their website, butit's very simple.
We're there to do stuff for thepeople and we're gonna work
(12:48):
together to accomplish that.
And as long as government isworking for the people, that's
our goals and those areobjectives.
Other than that, what they'relooking for are good candidates
that can articulate a message,deliver that message, and then
have passion for that message.
And I actually found them, theydidn't find me.
(13:09):
I approached them and said, I'mthinking about this.
What do you think?
And I met'em and they said.
Throw your hat in the ring.
We think you're a greatpotential candidate.
Um, they're going to have, sounlike the big parties who go
through the endorsement process,they have a convention.
The the forward party.
What they do are gonna do thisyear is they have an executive
committee at the state level.
(13:30):
They're meeting, and thenthey're going to make an
endorsement choice in November.
Allowing their candidates acrossall the platforms.
So they might run a Secretary ofState.
Yep.
Uh, you know, attorney General,a governor, they're gonna make
that endorsement early, allowingtheir candidates to get their
feet on Great idea because Imean, the real campaign, the
(13:53):
real nuts and bolts of acampaign really start in the
summer going into the thing.
So they're gonna do thisendorsement, and I'll hopefully
be endorsed on the 17th ofNovember.
And then we'll have anannouncement at the Capitol that
says, here's our endorsedcandidates.
And then I kind of launch acampaign.
But really going into the firstpart of the year is when you
(14:13):
boom and then you start, andit's gonna be a retail Kindness
Chronicles kitchen table, localcafe effort on my part.
And so I need to earneverybody's support because I
don't expect it.
And I don't expect people tofall in line.
They have to resonate with themessage.
Mm-hmm.
And there's gonna be a lot ofmeat on the bones.
(14:34):
I mean, there's gonna be somepolicy stuff, and I know it's
gonna resonate with 95% ofpeople, but from a 10,000 foot,
if you look at, you know, if youspend the time and kind of look
at what I'll be about, I thinkyou'll say, hmm.
All seems pretty reasonable.
It's, it's very reasonable.
Yeah.
It's, sorry, I, I don't wanna goon, but No, no, but that to me,
I think is what differentiatesyou from what we're experiencing
(14:57):
right now.
It's being reasonable, and Ijust have to mention, in
National Pol politics right now,we are, uh, in day 26 or 27 of a
government shutdown.
Now, if the government is forthe people.
If the government is for thepeople, the people that are
running government shouldunderstand that if they are
(15:18):
necessary, they need to have thegovernment open.
And the fact that with theirboth sides are digging their
heels in, and as a result ofthat.
The military's not getting paid.
The TSA agents are getting paid.
Nobody's getting paid.
They people working withoutpaid.
They're still working.
Yeah.
The air traffic controllersaren't getting paid.
Guess who's getting paid?
(15:38):
The senators are still gettingpaid.
The congressmen are stillgetting paid.
Yep.
It's complete is what it is.
That's right.
Ding.
Ding b ass.
One of the, you know, on thatpoint, and again, being kind of
apolitical, I've tried toexplain to people how the
parties work and what theirreal, or what the objectives and
goals are.
And I'll use the shutdown as anexample.
(16:00):
You pick which side I'm talkingabout.
You have one side that,, is gladthat the government shut down.
They're glad the government shutdown and you have the other side
that couldn't be happier, thatthe other side is glad the
government shut down.
Right?
Yeah.
And that's our politics.
Yuck.
It's just that, and I use theanalogy, well, I've used one
(16:20):
other analogy where we have, andI use the, uh, the tent
encampments in Minneapolis and Isay, let me give you an example
of where our, our politicalparties are at.
You have one party that doesn'twant to address the issue.
Because of certain agendas theyhave and you have the other
party that couldn't be happierthat they're not addressing the
(16:41):
issue because then they get touse it.
Yeah.
And then stuck in the middle aredisadvantaged people who clearly
need help, but they're there andthis side gets to focus on'em in
this side, and that's where itis now, myself, I would be an
honest broker between theparties I have no agendas here.
(17:01):
Let's bring you guys together.
Well, and that's, go ahead.
One of the, one of the linesthat you've used is, this idea
of being an honest broker of thefacts.
Is that how we Yeah, yeah,that's right.
An honest broker of the facts.
And I think what's happened ison both sides and people that
are on, you know, the extremesof both sides are lying to
(17:21):
themselves If they don't thinkthat there is some bs going on
as it relates to the facts, it'sa stalemate and I've thought a
lot about this.
And, and so you're thinking if Icome in as an independent, I
don't have that politicalbaggage that could break this
stalemate.
Yeah, and if you look, the, thegovernor HA is probably the most
(17:43):
unique office in the state.
That that has the ability to bea good broker, because let's
just use some hypotheticals.
Let's say we come to, uh,November 11th and the
Republicans win the House andthe Senate and I win the
governorship.
Well, there I am.
There you are.
Let's just say that theRepublicans win the Senate and
(18:05):
the Democrats win the house, andI win the governorship.
Now we need to have a broker.
That's actually gonna bring theparties together and get work
done.
Wouldn't that be somethingthat's where, where somebody
such as myself, as anindependent with my only agenda
is to work on behalf of thecitizenry, and my goal would be
to make Minnesota good foreverybody.
(18:27):
And I always said, everyoneneeds access to the good life
and, and then it works the otherway.
The Democrats get this and thenI'm there.
So here's the reality.
The reality is, is you're goingto be asked to.
Address certain situations thatare just by, by their nature,
our political situations.
(18:47):
And I'm gonna give you onebicep.
Yeah.
And I wanna see how you willanswer this question.
The issue of, gender identityand transgender athletes would
it be transgender females beingin female locker rooms?
Go At which level?
Just at the high school.
Okay.
High school.
So I'll start off by sayingthis, first of all, we need to
(19:09):
show some compassion for theseyoung people that are going
through this.
Good, good start.
Nope.
Everybody knows thatadolescents.
Is the most difficult part ofour lives now, compound that
with somebody that's havingthese identity crisis.
So I wanna start from thatpoint, but straightforward.
I don't think biological boysbelong in girls' locker rooms.
(19:34):
Or on the sports field, becausethis is really a two part issue.
We have these, these childrenwho are struggling with this and
going through this, but we alsohave young girls on the other
side of the equation that weneed to take into it.
So I think you can have bothanswers and be in the middle on
this issue.
We need to show compassion.
(19:55):
How do we show compassion?
Well, I think understanding.
I think understanding that if itwas my child.
That was struggling with thattype of an identity crisis at an
early age.
My first, my first call would beto seek help, meaning who can we
go to to talk this throughbefore we even, but they don't
need help.
That's what they are.
(20:15):
They well.
I mean, again, but they do needhelp.
Yes.
There's so, yes.
I mean, if you wanna have theargument, I think what happens
is, is people get so entrenchedthat they just, they take that
position, but they don't reallybelieve that they really know.
Correct.
They really know that it's, it'sa, it's a, a situation where
they need some, and I'll, I'lluse counseling as the term, so
my first call would be to get mychild some counseling and
(20:38):
understanding of what they'refeeling, why they're feeling,
what they're feeling.
And that it's not a bad thingbecause again, we don't wanna
put these children through, youknow, the last thing we want'em
to do is to think that there'sno hope.
Right?
And so that's not my game, butthe reality of it is I would not
have them do any, genderaffirming care, before, they're
(20:58):
fully.
Out of adolescence, prefrontalcortex is fully developed.
Well, that's right.
That's 25 years old.
But at, you know, 18, if my sonor my daughter felt at 18 years
old after going through all thecounseling and things, dad, I'm
in the wrong body.
I was born in the wrong body.
I'd say, you need to make thosedecisions now, and you, you go
(21:19):
on your life and we, I willsupport you in any way, shape,
or form, and it's gonna be atough journey.
I like, I like all your ideaabout being a broker.
Why hasn't it happened yet?
Because it doesn't pay.
Okay, tell me more.
It doesn't pay this.
These, and, and, and again, Iwanna go back.
This is a less than a, a, a halfa percent issue we're talking
(21:42):
about.
Oh yeah.
Young people below the age of 18who want to participate in
sports is under a percentageissue.
I just, it's, it's one of thosecultural flags that they carry.
Yeah.
It's ridiculous.
And it's under a percentageissue.
Yeah.
And, and why can't we have anhonest discussion on it that
says these, we have to showcompassion and we have to be
(22:02):
sensitive.
And I, I sympathize with theparents.
Because if it's, if I would doanything, some of the parents
though, ha have bought into itand are, are supporting them
pre-frontal cortex and saying,yeah, they were assigned to the
wrong gender.
I, I don't disagree with, withthat thing.
I've watched a lot of the shows,I've watched a lot of, you know,
documentaries and I've seenthat, but there's other parents
(22:24):
that just say, God forbid, Ijust want to.
I wanna help my child.
They're in pain.
Yep.
They're in pain and Exactly.
And the doctor says I should dothis.
So again, it's, it's reallytaking a sensitive approach, but
how do you, there's a way to becompassionate without treading
on the rights of the majority.
Yeah, no, a large, largemajority, and again, this is an
under a half a percent.
(22:45):
The point of this question,Mike, is those are the kind of
questions that you're gonna haveto address.
And I think that you addressthat very well.
Yeah.
I, and I don't wanna belabor thepoint on, on that issue.
Those are extremely sensitivesocial issues.
What I will tell everybody isthat's a very sensitive social
issue.
My campaign, and I don't, and Iuse this term loosely, there's
(23:08):
bigger fish to fry in Minnesotaright now without absolutely.
When it comes to taxation,spending, taxes, public safety,
um.
I, you know, the transgenderissue when it's brought up to
me, I think I've explained mypositioning on it.
Yeah.
But I'm, I'm not a, I'm not abrute and I'm not an insensitive
human being.
And I, I, let me just tell youabout a little interaction I
(23:30):
had, if it's okay.
Yes.
So I just was at Best Buy andthere's uh, uh, a transgender
woman working there.
Fabulous pink hair.
Yep.
Fabulous fingernails and hername takes at Allison and I'm
thinking, I'm sitting there, I'ma 56-year-old guy and I tell you
she couldn't be the, a betterassociate from Best Buy and
(23:51):
everything that's going on in mymind was, I just wanna make sure
that I sh am showing her therespect because all she's
showing me is respect.
Yep.
This is a young adult.
Absolutely.
This is a 25-year-old and thisis the path in life.
That she chose, and I'm okaywith that.
Totally.
It's different there than we'retalking about 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and
(24:13):
10 year olds, so I wanna make itclear.
Yeah.
I live and just live my friends.
Live and let live adults.
Yeah, it's, it's the biologicalfemales maybe though, have
worked really hard in theirgiven sport.
Yeah.
They're working their tails offand then they get, you know,
moved down because maybe.
A school prefers a per certainperson.
(24:34):
Shouldn't I know shouldn'thappen.
And, when I was looking at allof this and I'm, I said, oh
geez, I'm gonna have to, youknow, come up with positions.
I always had a position and it'sbeen just this position.
Yep.
We need to have, we need to havean understanding, but.
This doesn't belong or fit here,so we can go on.
What are some other ones thatyou anticipate having to deal
with in terms of issues?
Well, can I, can I ask one otherone because asks the easy ones
(24:55):
this, ask me the ones abouttaxes or something.
So I'm, I'm gonna ask coupleabout public safety.
So I'm gonna ask about, uh,specifically the, uh, the
financial situation that thestate of Minnesota is in.
Okay?
The fact is we had an$18 billionsurplus that in about four years
has turned into a$6 billiondeficit.
(25:16):
$24 billion.
At the same time, there's,you've had that swing, but at
the same time there have beenall of these stories of fraud
Yeah.
That have taken place.
How would you address, and I sawthat you already did it, uh, you
know, how would you address, uh,as the governor if somebody asks
you about, Hey, under yourleadership.
(25:39):
We have had millions, if notbillions of dollars of fraud.
Governor Newcomb, what do yousay about that?
You know, first and foremost, onbehalf of myself and my
administration, I wanna say I'msorry to the hardworking
taxpayers of Minnesota.
Excellent.
They start plain and simple thatwe can do better as a state, we
(26:01):
should do better, and we will dobetter.
But the bottom line is it's anegregious assault on the
taxpayers of Minnesota that wehave had this much fraud.
But I wanna let you know.
We've had this much fraud thewhole time.
This isn't just the last twoyears, three years, four years,
five years.
Go back and look at when werolled out the, the new driver's
(26:22):
license and tab website?
Oh, yeah.
You remember that debacle?
Yes.
Yes.
So you can call this what wehave now, fraud, but, or is it
just waste or incompetence?
Or incompetence When thatprogram Min Lars, excuse me.
Min Lars.
Yeah.
When that program got rolledout, it was gonna be a$35
million program.
Well, they rolled it out andthen it ended up costing 65
million and then it didn't workand it ended up costing 138
(26:45):
million and then it didn't work.
So they got rid of the entireprogram, brought in a third
party outside government groupand doubled the$138 million.
So was that fraud or was thatwaste, or was that incompetence
incompetent?
Yeah.
Look at Southwest.
Look light rail.
Oh boy.
It had a$1.5 billion price tag.
(27:07):
It now has a$3 billion pricetag.
Is that fraud?
Is that waste or is thatincompetence?
And what I would tell you isit's all of it.
Yep.
And so we've had this for yearsand years, but for some reason
Minnesotans woke up and theysaid, wait a minute.
This is crazy that we're losingthis much money and nobody's.
(27:31):
Doing anything about it andnobody's taking responsibility
for it.
Zero.
So I, I, you know what, it wasfun.
It was interesting to me becauseI wanted to see our sitting
governor give a good explanationor a good description of what
happened with this fraud.
He was asked this question andhis basic answer was, you know,
during COVID there was a lot ofmoney getting tossed around out
(27:53):
there, and there's organizedcrime in this state, and they
took advantage of it, but we'regonna get'em and we're gonna
solve this problem.
What I mean.
Right.
Took no responsibility for it.
No.
In, but it, and nor would theRepublicans if they were in
charge.
No.
No, exactly.
No, I'm not arguing.
No.
And it's funny, and I'm not,that's why I don't go after,
listen, I am, uh, governorWalls, uh, you, we don't call
(28:17):
names.
You, you mentioned that earlier.
I wouldn't call'em names or, or,or say names about him.
I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed how he'smanaging.
Hardworking Minnesotans monies.
I'm disappointed in hisadministration for all of his
appointments, commissionerappointments, and all of our
state agencies, they've done usa disservice.
And that says to me, you don'tdeserve an unprecedented third
(28:41):
term.
Correct.
Now, do I wanna hand the keysover to the red team?
Not necessarily.
And uh, I, I'll tell you why Ialways use this analogy.
Everybody has, anyone who has apickup truck will appreciate
this.
Uh, you have a buddy that wantsto move a couch and use your
pickup truck, right?
Right.
Uhhuh.
And you're reluctantly go.
Well, alright.
You're a buddy of mine.
(29:01):
I'm kind of familiar with youand I'll let you take the keys.
He takes the keys, but insteadof moving the truck, he goes
out, gets hammered, runs down300 mailboxes two days later,
brings your truck back, parks itin your driveway, and you say,
oh.
Well, what happened to thetruck?
And he says, well, his mailboxesgot in the way.
Mm-hmm.
That, that's, it doesn't matterwho you give the keys to in our
(29:22):
state, it the, it's the samestory over and over.
It's just from a differentperspective.
Well, that's, that's my questionis, so,, what period of time do
you look at in history?
That shows us things were runproperly.
I, I don't even know.
I feel like that's kind of thenature of government.
That's kind of the nature ofabsolute power.
Corrupts absolutely.
Things get ridiculous when youget going.
But don't you feel like it'sbigger now than ever?
(29:44):
I have no idea.
Well, you know what?
I don't either.
You wanna know something, John?
I just messy It's not, it's not.
So the numbers are biggerbecause everything's bigger.
Yeah.
But it's always been this way,but nobody reported on it.
It's always my, well, that ispart of it.
I think social media and thefact that.
You've got all kinds of voicesthat are being heard that had
(30:05):
never been heard before.
Correct.
Only that's why I played thatclip.
Well, and we're going into a, anelection year.
Yeah.
Mid.
So, and again, what I will tellyou is there's one, one side of
this equation that doesn't wantto take responsibility for what
happened.
And you have the other side thatcouldn't be happier.
They couldn't be happier thatall this money went away.
Yeah.
(30:25):
That's, that's just not how ourpolitics should be.
We should be able to cometogether and, I mean, I have a,
a, a, I'll call it a simplesolution for stopping fraud
before it actually happens.
'cause here's the problem.
We are not catching this fraudbefore it happens.
They're doing an audit after thefact, and then they say, I think
we lost a hundred million, butit could be a billion, but we're
(30:47):
gonna try to claw some of itback.
How about we stop it before itactually happens?
And if we could use one of mypolicies and proposals would be
to leverage technology.
And we'll just use the Medicaremedicaid program that's
administered at the state level.
You know, there's both federalfunds and state funds that go
into that, but I just wanna usethat as the example.
(31:07):
You could leverage technology,and I'll use the the dirty word,
ai, and you could create aprogram, a closed program, lay
it over the Medicare, paymentsystem, create rules and norms.
When you don't see the rules andnorms it automatically, right.
Almost in real time.
Real time would say, Hey, wait,check this out.
(31:27):
And then it would, it doesn'treplace humans because then it
gets escalated humans and sentto an investigator.
Is that kind of like a Minnesotaversion of Doge?
No.
So no, that's not a, that's nota Doge.
In principle of governmentefficiency.
No, I know exactly what it was.
It was a wonderful thoughtprogram and a horribly executed
(31:47):
program.
Horribly.
You don't go in and with, youknow, we're gonna fire people
and it, it's not what you haveto do, and we don't have to do
that in Minnesota.
But to finish on this point, wecould leverage technology.
We could stop the bad fraudulentpayments going out and ensure
that the good payments go outfaster.
And it's over.
It's done.
We don't pay out billions ofdollars in fraudulent claims.
(32:11):
Yeah.
Right now the insurance industryis, is is using this for their
claims.
Yep.
They're using it right now.
It's being, yeah.
Why, why don't, why doesn't thesay but why don't we?
That's a good question.
Maybe because they don't want,want find it.
Don't, they don't.
Not only do they not wanna findit, but where's the money going?
Who's it going to?
I'm not a conspiracy theorist,but.
We could easily have figuredthis stuff.
(32:31):
It's the same.
We, we've had this everywhereand, you know, sorry.
One of the things, Mike, that, Iwould love to see a political
season and I think that you havean answer to this, that, uh,
politician focuses on what'sright about them as opposed to
what's wrong about theiropponent.
And you mentioned somethingabout the fact that there's a
(32:52):
way to do this.
Attacking the parties withoutattacking the people.
Yep.
And I think that that's a fairdistinction, that it's truly the
parties that are at fault.
It's not necessarily the people.
They're propped up by theparties.
There are so manywell-intentioned people that are
in both sides.
Government.
Yep.
In government and both sides.
(33:13):
But, and I, I think I said thisbefore we started the podcast.
I call it the political matrix.
We've all thought we've been incontrol of these parties in this
system, but the reality is we'rejust there to provide power to
the machines.
And I said, I don't blame peoplewho are still in it.
It's comfortable, it's familiar,and you're most likely sitting
(33:34):
next to your friends and family.
However, there is analternative.
There actually is an alternativewhere we don't serve the
government, the governmentactually serves us.
We don't serve the parties.
The parties should have beenserving us, but that's, I mean,
we deserve better.
No, we, Mike Newcomb 2026.
No, we do deserve better.
And yeah.
(33:54):
And I don't want this to becomea campaign commercial for you.
No, I know.
Go ahead, Steve.
In, in.
Your question was how do we, Iwanna specifically, yeah.
How do we do this withoutattacking individuals?
Yeah.
So I'm not going afterindividuals.
Like I said, I'm disappointed inour, our governor right now.
I'm disappointed in how ourstate's going and that's it.
But to call'em names, that'sjust a child.
(34:15):
Yeah.
And, and I wanna use oneexample, who's ever done that?
When, no, because who's evercalled people names?
When you call people names.
And you, you dehumanize them.
And it happens on both sides.
It's true.
People do hear that.
I kept hearing the term in theuh, 2016 election.
A dog whistle.
It's a dog whistle.
It's a dog whistle.
Well, guess what?
When you call people names andyou dehumanize them, it's a dog
(34:38):
whistle to people that aren'tnecessarily stable.
And those people take action.
And I will tell you when.
This just, this absolutelycrushed me When, Melissa Hortman
and her husband Oh yeah, yeah.
Were shot on the, on herdoorstep.
I never posted anything onFacebook remotely.
(34:59):
And that, not political, buteven remotely opinionated.
And my, my one post said, ourleaders need to turn down the
temperature now.
Yeah.
We need to turn the temperaturedown now.
Because that is a horrible thingand it's only gotten turned up.
No, and that's what's so funnybecause we had, oh, I'm sorry,
Steve, uh, let me, and let meget this one point, because we,
(35:21):
that question was asked tosomebody, Hey, we need to turn
it down and I'll use apolitician, and they said, oh
yeah, we need to turn it down.
We need to turn it down.
We'll turn it down.
Then two weeks later it's like.
They're full blast.
Oh yeah.
And I thought, well, there wego.
Mm-hmm.
So, sorry.
Go ahead, Steve.
No, no.
This is all super interesting.
I think you, you have, you'reonto something great and I think
this is, fits perfectly what wetalk about.
But if I wanna point it back tokindness for a second, I have a
(35:42):
question about kindness.
Um, kindness as strength, notweakness.
So some people think kindness inpolitics means being soft or
passive, especially Minnesotapeople, you're a nice Minnesota
guy.
How do we.
How do you see kindness in aform of strength and in
leadership?
How, how can you utilizekindness, uh, without looking
(36:04):
like passive?
Like we we're just a, you know,oh geez, what are we gonna do?
How are you using kindness as astrength?
Well, I think my personalitysays I'm not passive.
What?
So, oh, no, I mean, I just want,I mean, I, fully understand
your, question.
it's messaging I'll just tellyou, it was funny.
I, somebody sent me a, a clipand they said, Mike, you gotta
(36:26):
get on this.
You gotta, you gotta let'emknow.
And, and I said, I'm not goingto because I think your approach
is not civil.
And he says, civil doesn't goviral.
Good luck on your camp.
And that's, and that's kind ofmy point.
And he said, good luck on yourcamp Hot that you know you, how
are you gonna do this in a waythat comes through what you're
still keeping with your basis ofwhy can't civil go viral?
(36:47):
No.
And here's it.
Absolutely.
Can Jeff look at him over there?
He wants to tell Jeff I had thisone thought and if I don't spit
it out on have a say it.
I already lost it.
There we go.
I'm sorry.
Can let me play a sound clip bya guy named Jonathan Height?
And it might spur what you wereabout to say, but it's what
Steve, I think is getting at.
Yeah.
And this is an issue and I don'tknow how to solve it.
(37:08):
Play a clip.
The moderate majority heightsays is either exhausted or
intimidated.
It's what I called structuralstupidity.
That is you have very smartpeople, highly educated, highly
intelligent, but you put them ina situation in which dissent is
punished severely, and whathappens, they go silent.
(37:29):
And when?
When the moderates or whenanyone is afraid to question the
dominant view.
The organization, theinstitution gets stupid.
Hmm.
So we were talking a littleearlier before we hit record
just about there's extremes onboth ends.
Mm-hmm.
That are, that seem to begetting the megaphone.
And so then the smarter people,the more moderates I think where
(37:49):
they'd have the intelligentdialogue like you're proposing
with the brokering of the ideas,they get shut down or they don't
wanna speak up.
They're afraid.
And what I'm gonna tell you is Iwas afraid for 56 years, I was
in that camp and I, I laid inthe weeds and I sat back and I
said, I'm afraid, I'm not afraidanymore.
(38:10):
We have a broken system.
We have leaders that don'trepresent the people, and I'm
gonna stand up and I'm gonna saythere's a better way of doing
it.
Minnesota deserves better.
And, and how can you do it bybeing kind and civil without
showing weakness?
You know, during a crisis iswhen you always see people, they
(38:30):
say, oh boy, that person stoodup.
During that crisis, I'll use,president Bush standing on that
pile of rubble.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And he took that megaphone andhe grabbed it and he says, I,
you know, I, can you hear?
I can't hear you.
And you know, the guy yells outin the thing and he yells, uh,
you can't hear me, but thepeople who did this, they will
hear me.
And George Bush was never amacho man or an orator at, at
(38:53):
all.
He stumbled over his words quitea lot.
But my, my thing is, if, if, ifI can stand up and I can
actually look like an adult.
And don't throw childish namesat people and don't act like a
fool.
Mm-hmm.
I, I, I think being kind.
Is going to show that I am areal human being in that I have
(39:14):
credibility versus yelling andscreaming and calling names.
I think what we discovered toowith all of our, uh, nice versus
kind and all that kindnessactually is about being honest.
Yep.
That's how you make effectivemoves and make things happen
smartly and, uh, credibly andrespectfully to people because
it might hurt when you hear itwhen it's truth.
(39:35):
But it's truth.
It's truth.
You start, that's Steve.
There's a whole episode you guysdid on courage, and kindness is
courageous.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that is your, your podcastis courageous in and of itself
if you think about it, becausethere's a million other probably
podcasts you could do that mightbe a bit more popular.
I don't know about that.
How crappy the Vikings are.
Yeah.
(39:56):
You know, that is true.
Or you know, everything that'sbad with Minnesota podcast,
you'd probably have morelisteners, but so no, I'm, you
know.
No, you're right.
But you're doing something andyou're being courageous in what
you're doing.
It's just better standing up foreverybody.
There's course, there's, there'sbetter things out there to talk
about and to, to celebrate andlift up because we have
children, we have people, wehave responsibilities, and we
(40:17):
have thoughts about this greatstate and this great place that
we all live in.
We gotta try to.
We gotta try to say that when wehave team meetings, I always
like to say there's clowns tothe left of me, jokers to the
right.
Here I am stuck in the middlewith you clowns.
But we all mature.
And if I could Well, well, no, Imean, you knew.
I mean, if you go back to my,well, you've matured and No, and
I have, and my, I've matured andI've, my, my positions have
(40:39):
shifted over time.
But that comes through thematuration process.
My friends will sit here and go,oh boy, nukes.
Boy, he was a, he's a firebrand.
That guy will go off and, youknow, chewy to pieces.
Yeah, I did.
And then I grew up.
Yeah.
And then I realized there's adifferent way and then I
realized I get more done.
And I got married and I realizedI knew nothing.
And then I realized, how toactually compromise and work and
(41:02):
the best line my dad ever had wewould talk about my mother.
He says, Michael, I'm gonna giveyou one piece of advice.
And he was a real calm man.
He says, with your mother.
You could be right.
You could be happy.
I chose to be happy.
And, and that was, that's alittle true to it.
Yeah.
That's, I think that that's whywe're all still married.
(41:22):
Yeah.
Well, and I've, uh, in former,my former professional life, I
had a, a boss, uh, his name wasGreg Orman.
He actually ran for senate inKansas as an independent and
governor in Kansas.
As an independent, he's the sameage as me, but was.
Years ahead of me at 25 yearsold.
And at that time in my life, Iwas a, a great salesperson.
(41:45):
I mean, I was number, I was themillion dollar guy that could
every year.
Mm-hmm.
And he says, Mike, I gotta tellyou something.
He says, you're like a Ferrarion the auto bond when you're on
the road, baby.
But you're in the shop a lot andyou had to, I had to mature and
I had to, you know, and thatjust came through time.
So, sorry.
You were, you were like a highmaintenance P player.
He recognized your raw ability,you just raw ability as a sales
(42:08):
guy.
But I was an immature person andnow I'm, you're making a, I
think I've grown.
So I wanna address a couple ofintangibles that I think makes
Mike Newcomb.
We're gonna, you know, we'regonna stay in touch with you,
Mike, but a couple ofintangibles I, we're gonna
follow this path.
This is as it relates to MikeNewcomb for starters.
Fantastic head of hair.
Thank you.
Still a beautiful head of hair.
Here's the other thing, I wantyou to go on to the, uh, the
(42:30):
Mike Newcomb Facebook page.
Chiseled jawline.
He clearly has not been.
He's made for, made for a, whenI, when I had, when I had lunch
with him, you know, he orderedthe hamburger without the bun.
Oh.
So, you know, he is antis carbs.
He's, yeah.
You know, he took his shirt, he,he posts pictures of himself on
the, uh, Facebook without ashirt on and gets away with it.
(42:54):
No, I don't.
I've seen it.
Yes, you did.
Oh, there was.
Oh yeah, 4th of July, but it wasmore the guys behind me.
But the guys behind you lookpretty good too.
So apparently my boys, there areno carbs being delivered at the
Newcomb household.
One list.
No.
Um, but you know, in addition tothat, you do have an energy
about you that I think isinfectious.
I think that you have an abilityto tell a story or to make a
(43:17):
point in a fairly concise way.
That is well thought out.
I will agree with you that youhave matured incredibly from the
clown that we knew in highschool and college.
And college and college.
Yeah.
You know, you've made somechoices.
I was the first guy and last guyto leave a party.
You were, you.
You know what, you had fun, agood time.
(43:38):
Um, you were a Ferrari at thoseparties as well.
I was a Ferrari baby.
Well, and you're a citizen too,and it's inspiring for me to see
that.
There are citizens gettingcourageous enough, you said
that, you know, I was sittingback in the weeds and now I'm
gonna decide and do somethingabout, and I think we need more
of that.
Yes, I agree.
And I'll add to that, I actuallydon't trust someone who hasn't
lived.
I want know about someone who'slived a little bit.
(43:59):
Absolutely.
I mean, here's what's very, I'mnot the perfect people.
You gotta enjoy your life.
Well, you're gonna trust whatthose decides are.
Yeah.
I mean, you have to.
Exactly.
No, but to to, to your point.
I mean, you're a person that's,you know, you've had success in
business.
Frankly, I, I think the, youknow, the fact that you're
pledging some of your own moneyin a significant amount Yes.
Is probably a differentiatorfrom some of the people that
(44:19):
are, uh, that are runningagainst you.
I will just say that,, thecurrent governor, other than
when he was working as a, uh,teacher mm-hmm.
He hasn't really had, he's neverreally run a business.
He's never really run anythingtrue.
I think that the time is rightfor a third party person in the
(44:40):
state of Minnesota.
What the left has done has beenfinancially a disaster.
And that is a fact.
Yeah.
You know, some of the socialprograms that they've come up
with might be great, but there'sall the fraud.
And a Republican I just don'tthink is ever going to win in
the state of Minnesota.
Uh, just because of the natureof the way that people vote,
(45:03):
however, it's like JesseVentura, when Jesse Ventura run
for g ran for governor, I don'tthink in a million years he ever
thought that he was gonna win.
I bet you he went to bed thenight of the election and when
he woke up the next morning, hewas like, what I, what?
I have to put a cabinettogether.
Yeah.
And, and you know, I have to getrid of my crazy hair and.
(45:27):
But again, there is anopportunity to shock the world.
And, the list of people that Iknow that have the capacity to
do it is very small.
And for whatever reason, Mike, Ithink you're the right guy right
now.
Thank you.
Now, well, and I'll, I'll endmy, the political talk on this
is, I am well aware of theuphill battle that I'm gonna
(45:51):
have.
Oh, it's so unlikely you wouldwin.
Right now I'm at less than ahalf a percent, and I'm okay
with that because, you know,they'll never see me coming, and
that's okay because I, I'm goodwith that.
But what I would ask people is,follow me.
Give me the opportunity to earnyour support.
Look at what I'm running on.
(46:11):
Look at what my priorities willbe.
I call a mission statement.
'cause in business we always hada mission statement.
Mm-hmm.
Just a simple declaration of whowe are and what we stood for.
I'll go to my website, it's notquite ready for prime time, but
it's getting better and it'sjust nuku for governor.com.
Check it out, give me time.
Over the next 12 months, I mightgrow on you.
(46:33):
I'm gonna stay true to thiscause I am putting my own money
in there.
But I also want people to knowI'm not.
The rich butthead that's justthrowing his money in and doing
it right.
I owned a cleaning company.
We cleaned 17,000 homes a year.
For the first three years, I didevery single cleaning.
(46:53):
Yeah.
I, I'll guarantee you, some ofmy customers will listen to you.
You 17,000 homes a year?
You did?
No, the business did.
Oh.
But for the first three years,the, the math doesn't make
sense.
No, no.
Okay.
You're, you're fast.
Uh, not that fast.
Well, we had 80, 80 full-timeteam members at that time, but
for the first three years Istarted with one van.
(47:14):
One mop bucket in one vacuum,and it was Mike Newcomb.
Yeah.
And my motto was, I went fromthe boardroom to the bathroom
and it smells a lot better inhere.
But it, uh, yes.
I'm, I'm putting my money intothis campaign because I want
other Minnesotans to say, Hey,if he's putting in his own
money, maybe we can help himout.
Yeah.
I'm not asking for that helpyet, but that, that time will
(47:35):
come.
But I, what my point was, is,uh, you know, I'm not the
billionaire who's throwing hismoney around for a vanity deal.
This money's gonna hurt.
I'm gonna have to figure outsomewhere down the line how to
hopefully re replace it.
Yeah.
This is part of, and my wifesays, you know, this is our
retirement money, Mike.
And I said, I know, but this isa good cause, Marie.
And she says, I'm with you.
There are things about running acampaign.
(47:58):
And if it's a campaign thatreally emphasizes truly kindness
and compassion, but thoughtful,smart compassion, it's hard to,
to, to argue with that.
Mm-hmm.
And I do think that that couldbe a differentiator, because
there's just not enough of thatin politics right now.
(48:20):
I, I hope so.
Now.
Yeah.
There's none there.
There's.
There's attempts.
It, it's so strange.
My, my dad served in thelegislature from 1964 to 1973,
and when he ran.
There was no party designation.
He ran as Tom Newcomb from WhiteBear Lake.
Wow.
That was his party designation.
(48:41):
Yeah.
Then when he would get to the,to the, uh, house floor, you'd
have to caucus with the liberalor the conservatives, and Wendy
Anderson, Wendell Anderson, thegovernor at the time, wanted the
DFL party to have moreprominence and that's when he
said, now we're gonna have partydesignators while running.
My dad retired.
He said, I'm isn't, isn't.
(49:01):
Isn't that the guy that when aSenate seat opened, he appointed
himself as the senator?
The greatest political travestyin the history of Minnesota,
Minnesota was when GovernorWendell Anderson appointed
himself into Walter Mondale'sseat when he became vice
president and he destroyed whatwas the most promising.
(49:22):
Political career, politicalcareer, ever.
This was the ex Olympian.
He was the most, I have the Timemagazine at my house with him on
the cover of it, MinnesotaFishing, and he, he did that to
himself and my dad said, poorWendy, what a shame, because
back then my, you know, they'dget off the floor and, and
they'd all go to Kelly's, whichwas over in the Holiday Inn.
(49:42):
And my dad said, well, we'd alltalk, we'd all have a beer.
No one.
There was no fighting like this.
It was the, the Democrats andRepublicans, they all said, eh,
good, good time on the floor.
Glad you got your bill through.
Hey, good job, Tom.
Yeah, my dad, bless him, isrolling over in his grave to see
right now that they can't evensit in the same room together.
Yeah.
Well, I asked my my dad thattoo, if, if there was any kind
of division like there was, andhe said, not at all.
(50:04):
No way.
Well, back to what you weresaying, maybe before we started
talking on the, on the podcast,Mike.
Yeah.
Is that, that, that they wereable to do that?
And have a beer together andtalk.
'cause ultimately they're both,they're all working towards the
better, exactly.
The better thing, which isworking government and people
getting what they need.
No, yeah.
And I use the example of, soI've spent time in boardrooms
and in going into a boardroom,there's the CEOC, F-O-C-I-O.
(50:28):
Everybody, yo, yo, yo and themanagers, and they all have
different agendas.
They want headcount, they needmoney for their programs, but
they have one objective to makethe company better.
And when they go in and theydon't get exactly what they
wanted, it didn't matter becausethey all came in with the same
goals and objectives, make thecompany better.
So they'd leave and be like, ohyeah, well good job.
(50:50):
You got your, you know, sixpeople in your department and I
got none, but we're gonna makethe company better.
That's not how it is.
At our capital, they don't havethe same goals and objectives.
And then therefore, when youdon't come in to say, we have to
do what's right for thecitizenry, we have to spend
their money wisely.
We have to be good stewards ofour taxpayers dollars when they
(51:13):
don't have those same objectivesand goals.
That's why we have a, a warground there because it's one
side lost.
In the other side won.
Right?
Where, what it should be is Ididn't get exactly what I
wanted, but we all won becausethe goals and objectives were
met.
Really appreciate you coming in.
Uh, this has been terrific.
Yeah, it's exciting.
(51:34):
It's exciting to, to know youand know you're jumping into
this.
It'd be fun to see what happens.
And, uh, all the best of luck toyou, Mike.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
And thank you.
And thanks for coming in, Mike.
It's been great.
And with that, off we go, playthe tune.
(51:59):
Bye-bye.
We are being rewarded for beingdivision entrepreneurs.
The better you are at innovatinga new way to be divisive, we
will pay you in more likes,followers, and reach.
Welcome to the KindnessChronicles.
Woo.
A apolitical politicalconversation heading your way.
(00:33):
What do we do here?
We're hoping to give the world adose of the Minnesota kindness
that it desperately needs, andwe're gonna be talking about
Minnesota politics without beingpolitical.
Is that possible?
But first, we're gonna find outif we can.
Let's see.
Yeah, let's see.
We're gonna see if we can, We'vegot, Jeff Hoffman.
Hi Jeff.
Welcome.
Thank you.
The welcome to me, I guess.
(00:54):
Welcome to you Steve Brown.
Hi.
Hi.
Steve Kgs on assignment.
He's working, or actually thinkhe's at movie club tonight or
something.
Michael's in Austin.
Our guest, Mike Newcomb, we'regonna call him in here in just a
second.
I have to tell you about myweekend because let's hear.
It was extraordinary.
So Friday night I got to go tothe opening of the Lee and Penny
(01:16):
Anderson, Arena at St.
Thomas.
The brand new hockey andbasketball venue, absolutely
incredible.
I think it's a 5,000 seat, venueand my goodness, they did it
right.
Where is it?
It's right on the St.
Thomas campus.
Oh, neat.
Yep.
South part of the campus.
It's Spanky News, sparkly clean,beautiful, sparkly clean,
(01:36):
stunning architecture'sbeautiful.
I'm sure the architecture'samazing.
The sound system is incredible.
My favorite part of the wholeevent though, and I talked to a
couple of their fundraising guysafterwards.
The, uh, Lee and Penny came outand dropped the puck for the
boys, uh, the men's game.
And he's a guy that we shouldknow.
We should know Lee.
Everybody should know LeeAnderson.
He's a hockey.
(01:57):
No.
Lee Anderson is, no, he's theguy that he and his wife donated
$75 million to get this done.
Cool.
Anyway.
They're walking off afterdropping the puck and the, the,
the student section startchanting Lee and Penny.
Ah, and I mean they had the, thecrowd that's was just going
wild.
And it wasn't set up like that.
(02:19):
Those students did it organic ontheir own.
Organic.
It was organic.
And the guy who was likeresponsible for raising the
majority of the money.
Came up and talked.
I was there with Kevin Gorg and,uh, my son Ben, and then Mark
Macey, who's a good buddy ofours, and he said, I couldn't
have scripted that any better.
He said, we hadn't even thoughtof that.
That's awesome.
Of course.
And they started chanting Leeand Penny.
(02:40):
I mean, what, you know, what,how cool does that feel for that
guy that's, and how cool does itfeel?
To be a St.
Thomas alum.
Yeah.
Being able to see that those arethe, that's what the fact that
those students had thewherewithal in the sense, yeah.
To cheer those people on gave megoosebumps.
That's cool.
Really cool.
But what really gave megoosebumps Yeah.
Was Saturday night I got to goto the hope for Helen Gala.
(03:02):
Yeah.
And when I tell you that one ofour guests, Dan, recent guests,
Dan and Stephanie My goodness,did they kill it?
I go to a lot of these eventsand this was the first time that
they did one of these events.
It was stunning.
It was incredible.
They raised hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
Good.
They had, two of the Universityof Minnesota, PhD scientists.
(03:26):
Our friend Dr.
Brandon Moriarty.
Yeah, I saw the photos onLinkedIn.
Oh.
So yeah.
Super cool.
So Brandon.
So Brandon listened to ourpodcast and he said, Hey, I
heard you talking about my hair.
I said, I was complimentaryabout your hair.
You know, I said, I'm jealous ofyour hairline.
But they gave a presentation andjust talked about how they're
taking some of the things thatthey have discovered while at
(03:48):
the Masonic Cancer Center.
They're applying them to theseother rare diseases, these rare
ailments, and it's all aboutgenetic.
Uh, I don't know.
I can't even talk about it.
There's, it's just they'remaking strides.
They're making strides.
That's fantastic.
But I ran into Brandon after theevent out in the parking lot and
I said, you know what?
(04:08):
I have decided that you aredefinitely smarter than me.
And he goes.
I think you're probably right.
So I'm not sure.
He seems very reminds me of yourpremed test that you had in
biology.
I struggled, uh, I struggled.
You know, went, became amarketing major.
That's right.
'cause that's where people likeme belong.
That's right.
Wow.
What a people.
(04:28):
Yeah.
You you have a jam packed, uh,weekend often, like so many
events you go to Sunday morning,I can't keep up.
I know.
Sunday morning I went up, uh, Igot up and went up to our, our
pillars brunch for.
Our big donors up in Duluth.
I'm tired.
You're eating.
You are.
You're all over.
Yeah.
You're getting these fancymeals.
Every, every, every meal.
Rubber chicken.
Rubber chicken.
Oh.
But actually the meal atHazeltine was fantastic.
(04:51):
I sure it was.
And actually the, uh, the brunchthat we had, uh, yesterday
morning was lovely enough aboutfood.
Right.
Speaking of guys, yeah.
Do you guys have anything elsethat you need to add about your
weekends?
Didn't do a whole lot.
Great.
I watched my wife run a raceThat was really cool.
In Wisconsin.
Did you win sson?
You know, she's a winner.
She's a winner.
Oh boy.
You're good.
(05:11):
She's a winner.
How about you, Steve?
Do you do anything?
I did a lot of, still, I'm stillunpacking in White Bear.
I'm a recent White Bearresident.
Uh, and yeah, and, uh, and Ispent some time, we, we
winterized my mom's house onSunday, so it was nice of you,
Steve.
Very nice by the way.
Your mother sent me the mostlovely, uh, sympathy card.
(05:32):
Oh, yep.
That's Ronnie for the passing ofmy dad.
What a woman.
Oh my gosh.
You're, she knows that yourmom's going through.
Talk about the KindnessChronicles right there.
She's living it.
Yep.
Yeah.
We'll talk about that anotherday.
Yeah.
We have a very, very specialguest in with us.
Yeah, we do.
This gentleman, we've, uh, hadhim on the podcast before.
Briefly.
He was, uh, overshadowed by acouple of young ladies from
(05:53):
Ukraine who truly stole theshow.
Yeah.
But, uh, this guy is a guy that,uh, graduated from, uh, high
school a year between you and I,Steve.
Mm-hmm.
Um, didn't make it all the wayto the end at Hill Murray.
Something happened and he endedup at White Bear, and we won't
talk about it.
Was his per, it was hispersonality.
(06:13):
It was too overwhelming for the,uh, the nuns or something.
But, uh, some stars shine alittle brighter, John.
Absolutely.
Well, this guy, our friend, MikeNewcomb.
Welcome back, Mike.
Thank you.
And Mike has decided, you knowwhat, I'm looking for something
to do.
Why don't I just fix theproblems of the state of
Minnesota and run for governor?
(06:35):
Yeah.
Easy.
It seems like a, you know, what,what are you doing next week,
governor?
I'm running for Governor.
Governor.
Governor, you know.
Wow.
Don't wanna run for school boardor city council.
Let's just go straight for thegovernor.
That's right's.
What we think, aim high, bigthinker.
But what I love about this, andwe have tried really hard to
stay away from politics.
You know, we each have our,political, uh, well, it's, we're
(06:56):
inundated all the time.
That's not what we're trying todo here.
We're not trying to do that, andwe are inundated with it.
But I think that thisconversation is truly a kindness
chronicles level.
Political campaign that is gonnabe run by our friend Mike.
Well, let's, yeah, let's hearthat.
And I met with him a couple ofweeks ago and we talked about
this, and I find him to beprobably the most apolitical,
(07:19):
aspiring politician that I'veever connected with.
just looking forward to hearinga little bit about your campaign
and what your objective is and,uh, why, why now, and why, why
did you decide to do this?
Like, give us the scoop and tellus, and welcome.
I welcome, uh, first of all,thank you.
And thank you for theintroduction and thanks for
having me on again.
Uh, I've been asked thatquestion probably a hundred
(07:42):
times, Uhhuh, and it's a twopart question.
So why run for governor and whynow?
The why now really came about.
For, for two reasons.
A handful of weeks ago we hadour young Ukrainian women.
Mm-hmm.
On your podcast?
Yep.
Probably the most inspiring, uh,people I've ever met in my life,
(08:03):
really.
And we'd sit around the kitchentable every single night and
we'd have conversations and we'dtalk about the war in Ukraine,
and we'd talk about America andthey'd talk about what they'd
see on the news, and they wouldtalk about politics in Ukraine.
And I talk about politics.
In America and we would talk andI'd be very forthright with them
(08:26):
about, you know, every systemhas their pros and every system
has their cons.
And, and they just, they keptsaying to me, oh, well, we're
going to be positive agents forchange in Ukraine when this
war's over.
We're gonna be a positive agentfor change.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Yeah.
And I kept thinking, oh, that'sso inspiring.
Yeah.
These 16-year-old girls Yeah.
Who are living through a warhave already decided that
(08:49):
they're gonna be a positiveagent for change.
And I was just, I was, I'mwatching the news, I'm seeing
everything that's out there.
And I said, Hey, wait a minute.
Why can't I be a positive agentfor change?
These girls are inspiring you.
A a hundred percent 16-year-oldgirls are telling you, showing
you the way.
That's cool.
They, they, they actually, theyactually showed me a, a
(09:11):
humility.
I was embarrassed of myself tonot be so aware that we could
make, be these positive agents achange.
Yeah.
So wait a second.
Four weeks ago or whenever theywere in here, you weren't
thinking about running forgovernor at that point I had.
So like all of us, we alwaysthink we can see and be like, I
can do better than that.
Mm-hmm.
I can do better than that.
But the short answer is no.
(09:32):
Wow.
I wasn't, I was living a greatlife.
You've gotten a lot accomplishedin four weeks.
Well, uh, I wanna tell you.
I I can.
That's, so you said it was a twopart answer.
So one of them is you'reinspired by the, so I was
inspired, I mean, it's really athree part answer and I was also
inspired, and it's what made mereach out to John months and
months and months and months agobecause of the Kindness
Chronicles.
And I said, what a great show.
(09:54):
You're, you're here focusing on.
Thank you.
Good people agree.
No.
And I said, I'm not gonnapatronize you.
But again, I, I'm patronizeaway, patronize, patronize.
I'm as sincere as possible.
I love the fact that there'sother Minnesotans that say All
this noise is just noise.
We need to focus on what realMinnesotans are doing.
(10:15):
And usually we're all doinggreat things, kind things.
And you know, when.
Anytime I would see the negativestuff, I'd kind of turn it off
because it just poisons our, ourbrains.
Yeah.
And then, so that was the other,you know, kind of inspiration,
the Kindness Chronicles.
I've categorized my campaigns.
It's gonna be the KindnessChronicle campaign.
(10:37):
We're not gonna, we're notgonna, uh.
Call people names and we're notgonna do the blame game.
We're gonna talk about facts andwe're gonna have a campaign of
substance.
I'm afraid the KindnessChronicles has been trade
trademarked, taken.
I'm sorry.
And, uh, we'll have tonegotiate.
There's some royalties probably.
But Mike, I do remember when youwere here the last time
specifically, and I can'tremember if we were recording.
(10:58):
I think we were, but you, uh,you said there's a lot of people
moving out of Minnesota becauseof the politics, and the only
way we're gonna take our stateback or change it for the better
is staying in.
Dealing with the problems, and Ithought, wow, he's actually
putting his money where hismouth is Now.
When John had told us about youcoming today, a a lot of my
(11:18):
friends said we're, we're movingoutta the state.
And it's not as though they wereDemocrats or Republicans.
They were just felt that thetemperature in the state, not
the air temperature right, butthe tone in the temperature in
the state changed from what itused to be in Minnesota without
question.
And the, so the third part isreal simple.
I'm a firm believer that we nolonger have a government that is
(11:41):
by the people and for thepeople.
It's now by the parties andtheir special interest and for
the parties and their specialinterests.
And once I recognize that, itkind of freed my mind to say.
This is broken, and when I talkto more and more Minnesotans, so
I made this announcement thatI'm seeking the endorsement for
(12:04):
the Forward Independence party.
And I, uh, on the video, howdoes that process work real
quick?
So, you know, they're a, they'rea minor party, so you have your
Republicans and you have yourDemocrats, and this was the
outcropping of when JesseVentura was governor.
This actually is the party thatcame out of Ross Perot, 1992.
If any, if you old folks areout, out there like me, and
(12:25):
remember that.
But it's a third party movementthat's kind of morphed itself
from an independence party to areform party, and now they've
kind of standardized on theforward party, meaning we need
to move stuff forward.
And their platform is simple.
You can go to their website, butit's very simple.
We're there to do stuff for thepeople and we're gonna work
(12:48):
together to accomplish that.
And as long as government isworking for the people, that's
our goals and those areobjectives.
Other than that, what they'relooking for are good candidates
that can articulate a message,deliver that message, and then
have passion for that message.
And I actually found them, theydidn't find me.
(13:09):
I approached them and said, I'mthinking about this.
What do you think?
And I met'em and they said.
Throw your hat in the ring.
We think you're a greatpotential candidate.
Um, they're going to have, sounlike the big parties who go
through the endorsement process,they have a convention.
The the forward party.
What they do are gonna do thisyear is they have an executive
committee at the state level.
(13:30):
They're meeting, and thenthey're going to make an
endorsement choice in November.
Allowing their candidates acrossall the platforms.
So they might run a Secretary ofState.
Yep.
Uh, you know, attorney General,a governor, they're gonna make
that endorsement early, allowingtheir candidates to get their
feet on Great idea because Imean, the real campaign, the
(13:53):
real nuts and bolts of acampaign really start in the
summer going into the thing.
So they're gonna do thisendorsement, and I'll hopefully
be endorsed on the 17th ofNovember.
And then we'll have anannouncement at the Capitol that
says, here's our endorsedcandidates.
And then I kind of launch acampaign.
But really going into the firstpart of the year is when you
(14:13):
boom and then you start, andit's gonna be a retail Kindness
Chronicles kitchen table, localcafe effort on my part.
And so I need to earneverybody's support because I
don't expect it.
And I don't expect people tofall in line.
They have to resonate with themessage.
Mm-hmm.
And there's gonna be a lot ofmeat on the bones.
(14:34):
I mean, there's gonna be somepolicy stuff, and I know it's
gonna resonate with 95% ofpeople, but from a 10,000 foot,
if you look at, you know, if youspend the time and kind of look
at what I'll be about, I thinkyou'll say, hmm.
All seems pretty reasonable.
It's, it's very reasonable.
Yeah.
It's, sorry, I, I don't wanna goon, but No, no, but that to me,
I think is what differentiatesyou from what we're experiencing
(14:57):
right now.
It's being reasonable, and Ijust have to mention, in
National Pol politics right now,we are, uh, in day 26 or 27 of a
government shutdown.
Now, if the government is forthe people.
If the government is for thepeople, the people that are
running government shouldunderstand that if they are
(15:18):
necessary, they need to have thegovernment open.
And the fact that with theirboth sides are digging their
heels in, and as a result ofthat.
The military's not getting paid.
The TSA agents are getting paid.
Nobody's getting paid.
They people working withoutpaid.
They're still working.
Yeah.
The air traffic controllersaren't getting paid.
Guess who's getting paid?
(15:38):
The senators are still gettingpaid.
The congressmen are stillgetting paid.
Yep.
It's complete is what it is.
That's right.
Ding.
Ding b ass.
One of the, you know, on thatpoint, and again, being kind of
apolitical, I've tried toexplain to people how the
parties work and what theirreal, or what the objectives and
goals are.
And I'll use the shutdown as anexample.
(16:00):
You pick which side I'm talkingabout.
You have one side that,, is gladthat the government shut down.
They're glad the government shutdown and you have the other side
that couldn't be happier, thatthe other side is glad the
government shut down.
Right?
Yeah.
And that's our politics.
Yuck.
It's just that, and I use theanalogy, well, I've used one
(16:20):
other analogy where we have, andI use the, uh, the tent
encampments in Minneapolis and Isay, let me give you an example
of where our, our politicalparties are at.
You have one party that doesn'twant to address the issue.
Because of certain agendas theyhave and you have the other
party that couldn't be happierthat they're not addressing the
(16:41):
issue because then they get touse it.
Yeah.
And then stuck in the middle aredisadvantaged people who clearly
need help, but they're there andthis side gets to focus on'em in
this side, and that's where itis now, myself, I would be an
honest broker between theparties I have no agendas here.
(17:01):
Let's bring you guys together.
Well, and that's, go ahead.
One of the, one of the linesthat you've used is, this idea
of being an honest broker of thefacts.
Is that how we Yeah, yeah,that's right.
An honest broker of the facts.
And I think what's happened ison both sides and people that
are on, you know, the extremesof both sides are lying to
(17:21):
themselves If they don't thinkthat there is some bs going on
as it relates to the facts, it'sa stalemate and I've thought a
lot about this.
And, and so you're thinking if Icome in as an independent, I
don't have that politicalbaggage that could break this
stalemate.
Yeah, and if you look, the, thegovernor HA is probably the most
(17:43):
unique office in the state.
That that has the ability to bea good broker, because let's
just use some hypotheticals.
Let's say we come to, uh,November 11th and the
Republicans win the House andthe Senate and I win the
governorship.
Well, there I am.
There you are.
Let's just say that theRepublicans win the Senate and
(18:05):
the Democrats win the house, andI win the governorship.
Now we need to have a broker.
That's actually gonna bring theparties together and get work
done.
Wouldn't that be somethingthat's where, where somebody
such as myself, as anindependent with my only agenda
is to work on behalf of thecitizenry, and my goal would be
to make Minnesota good foreverybody.
(18:27):
And I always said, everyoneneeds access to the good life
and, and then it works the otherway.
The Democrats get this and thenI'm there.
So here's the reality.
The reality is, is you're goingto be asked to.
Address certain situations thatare just by, by their nature,
our political situations.
(18:47):
And I'm gonna give you onebicep.
Yeah.
And I wanna see how you willanswer this question.
The issue of, gender identityand transgender athletes would
it be transgender females beingin female locker rooms?
Go At which level?
Just at the high school.
Okay.
High school.
So I'll start off by sayingthis, first of all, we need to
(19:09):
show some compassion for theseyoung people that are going
through this.
Good, good start.
Nope.
Everybody knows thatadolescents.
Is the most difficult part ofour lives now, compound that
with somebody that's havingthese identity crisis.
So I wanna start from thatpoint, but straightforward.
I don't think biological boysbelong in girls' locker rooms.
(19:34):
Or on the sports field, becausethis is really a two part issue.
We have these, these childrenwho are struggling with this and
going through this, but we alsohave young girls on the other
side of the equation that weneed to take into it.
So I think you can have bothanswers and be in the middle on
this issue.
We need to show compassion.
(19:55):
How do we show compassion?
Well, I think understanding.
I think understanding that if itwas my child.
That was struggling with thattype of an identity crisis at an
early age.
My first, my first call would beto seek help, meaning who can we
go to to talk this throughbefore we even, but they don't
need help.
That's what they are.
(20:15):
They well.
I mean, again, but they do needhelp.
Yes.
There's so, yes.
I mean, if you wanna have theargument, I think what happens
is, is people get so entrenchedthat they just, they take that
position, but they don't reallybelieve that they really know.
Correct.
They really know that it's, it'sa, it's a, a situation where
they need some, and I'll, I'lluse counseling as the term, so
my first call would be to get mychild some counseling and
(20:38):
understanding of what they'refeeling, why they're feeling,
what they're feeling.
And that it's not a bad thingbecause again, we don't wanna
put these children through, youknow, the last thing we want'em
to do is to think that there'sno hope.
Right?
And so that's not my game, butthe reality of it is I would not
have them do any, genderaffirming care, before, they're
(20:58):
fully.
Out of adolescence, prefrontalcortex is fully developed.
Well, that's right.
That's 25 years old.
But at, you know, 18, if my sonor my daughter felt at 18 years
old after going through all thecounseling and things, dad, I'm
in the wrong body.
I was born in the wrong body.
I'd say, you need to make thosedecisions now, and you, you go
(21:19):
on your life and we, I willsupport you in any way, shape,
or form, and it's gonna be atough journey.
I like, I like all your ideaabout being a broker.
Why hasn't it happened yet?
Because it doesn't pay.
Okay, tell me more.
It doesn't pay this.
These, and, and, and again, Iwanna go back.
This is a less than a, a, a halfa percent issue we're talking
(21:42):
about.
Oh yeah.
Young people below the age of 18who want to participate in
sports is under a percentageissue.
I just, it's, it's one of thosecultural flags that they carry.
Yeah.
It's ridiculous.
And it's under a percentageissue.
Yeah.
And, and why can't we have anhonest discussion on it that
says these, we have to showcompassion and we have to be
(22:02):
sensitive.
And I, I sympathize with theparents.
Because if it's, if I would doanything, some of the parents
though, ha have bought into itand are, are supporting them
pre-frontal cortex and saying,yeah, they were assigned to the
wrong gender.
I, I don't disagree with, withthat thing.
I've watched a lot of the shows,I've watched a lot of, you know,
documentaries and I've seenthat, but there's other parents
(22:24):
that just say, God forbid, Ijust want to.
I wanna help my child.
They're in pain.
Yep.
They're in pain and Exactly.
And the doctor says I should dothis.
So again, it's, it's reallytaking a sensitive approach, but
how do you, there's a way to becompassionate without treading
on the rights of the majority.
Yeah, no, a large, largemajority, and again, this is an
under a half a percent.
(22:45):
The point of this question,Mike, is those are the kind of
questions that you're gonna haveto address.
And I think that you addressthat very well.
Yeah.
I, and I don't wanna belabor thepoint on, on that issue.
Those are extremely sensitivesocial issues.
What I will tell everybody isthat's a very sensitive social
issue.
My campaign, and I don't, and Iuse this term loosely, there's
(23:08):
bigger fish to fry in Minnesotaright now without absolutely.
When it comes to taxation,spending, taxes, public safety,
um.
I, you know, the transgenderissue when it's brought up to
me, I think I've explained mypositioning on it.
Yeah.
But I'm, I'm not a, I'm not abrute and I'm not an insensitive
human being.
And I, I, let me just tell youabout a little interaction I
(23:30):
had, if it's okay.
Yes.
So I just was at Best Buy andthere's uh, uh, a transgender
woman working there.
Fabulous pink hair.
Yep.
Fabulous fingernails and hername takes at Allison and I'm
thinking, I'm sitting there, I'ma 56-year-old guy and I tell you
she couldn't be the, a betterassociate from Best Buy and
(23:51):
everything that's going on in mymind was, I just wanna make sure
that I sh am showing her therespect because all she's
showing me is respect.
Yep.
This is a young adult.
Absolutely.
This is a 25-year-old and thisis the path in life.
That she chose, and I'm okaywith that.
Totally.
It's different there than we'retalking about 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and
(24:13):
10 year olds, so I wanna make itclear.
Yeah.
I live and just live my friends.
Live and let live adults.
Yeah, it's, it's the biologicalfemales maybe though, have
worked really hard in theirgiven sport.
Yeah.
They're working their tails offand then they get, you know,
moved down because maybe.
A school prefers a per certainperson.
(24:34):
Shouldn't I know shouldn'thappen.
And, when I was looking at allof this and I'm, I said, oh
geez, I'm gonna have to, youknow, come up with positions.
I always had a position and it'sbeen just this position.
Yep.
We need to have, we need to havean understanding, but.
This doesn't belong or fit here,so we can go on.
What are some other ones thatyou anticipate having to deal
with in terms of issues?
Well, can I, can I ask one otherone because asks the easy ones
(24:55):
this, ask me the ones abouttaxes or something.
So I'm, I'm gonna ask coupleabout public safety.
So I'm gonna ask about, uh,specifically the, uh, the
financial situation that thestate of Minnesota is in.
Okay?
The fact is we had an$18 billionsurplus that in about four years
has turned into a$6 billiondeficit.
(25:16):
$24 billion.
At the same time, there's,you've had that swing, but at
the same time there have beenall of these stories of fraud
Yeah.
That have taken place.
How would you address, and I sawthat you already did it, uh, you
know, how would you address, uh,as the governor if somebody asks
you about, Hey, under yourleadership.
(25:39):
We have had millions, if notbillions of dollars of fraud.
Governor Newcomb, what do yousay about that?
You know, first and foremost, onbehalf of myself and my
administration, I wanna say I'msorry to the hardworking
taxpayers of Minnesota.
Excellent.
They start plain and simple thatwe can do better as a state, we
(26:01):
should do better, and we will dobetter.
But the bottom line is it's anegregious assault on the
taxpayers of Minnesota that wehave had this much fraud.
But I wanna let you know.
We've had this much fraud thewhole time.
This isn't just the last twoyears, three years, four years,
five years.
Go back and look at when werolled out the, the new driver's
(26:22):
license and tab website?
Oh, yeah.
You remember that debacle?
Yes.
Yes.
So you can call this what wehave now, fraud, but, or is it
just waste or incompetence?
Or incompetence When thatprogram Min Lars, excuse me.
Min Lars.
Yeah.
When that program got rolledout, it was gonna be a$35
million program.
Well, they rolled it out andthen it ended up costing 65
million and then it didn't workand it ended up costing 138
(26:45):
million and then it didn't work.
So they got rid of the entireprogram, brought in a third
party outside government groupand doubled the$138 million.
So was that fraud or was thatwaste, or was that incompetence
incompetent?
Yeah.
Look at Southwest.
Look light rail.
Oh boy.
It had a$1.5 billion price tag.
(27:07):
It now has a$3 billion pricetag.
Is that fraud?
Is that waste or is thatincompetence?
And what I would tell you isit's all of it.
Yep.
And so we've had this for yearsand years, but for some reason
Minnesotans woke up and theysaid, wait a minute.
This is crazy that we're losingthis much money and nobody's.
(27:31):
Doing anything about it andnobody's taking responsibility
for it.
Zero.
So I, I, you know what, it wasfun.
It was interesting to me becauseI wanted to see our sitting
governor give a good explanationor a good description of what
happened with this fraud.
He was asked this question andhis basic answer was, you know,
during COVID there was a lot ofmoney getting tossed around out
(27:53):
there, and there's organizedcrime in this state, and they
took advantage of it, but we'regonna get'em and we're gonna
solve this problem.
What I mean.
Right.
Took no responsibility for it.
No.
In, but it, and nor would theRepublicans if they were in
charge.
No.
No, exactly.
No, I'm not arguing.
No.
And it's funny, and I'm not,that's why I don't go after,
listen, I am, uh, governorWalls, uh, you, we don't call
(28:17):
names.
You, you mentioned that earlier.
I wouldn't call'em names or, or,or say names about him.
I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed how he'smanaging.
Hardworking Minnesotans monies.
I'm disappointed in hisadministration for all of his
appointments, commissionerappointments, and all of our
state agencies, they've done usa disservice.
And that says to me, you don'tdeserve an unprecedented third
(28:41):
term.
Correct.
Now, do I wanna hand the keysover to the red team?
Not necessarily.
And uh, I, I'll tell you why Ialways use this analogy.
Everybody has, anyone who has apickup truck will appreciate
this.
Uh, you have a buddy that wantsto move a couch and use your
pickup truck, right?
Right.
Uhhuh.
And you're reluctantly go.
Well, alright.
You're a buddy of mine.
(29:01):
I'm kind of familiar with youand I'll let you take the keys.
He takes the keys, but insteadof moving the truck, he goes
out, gets hammered, runs down300 mailboxes two days later,
brings your truck back, parks itin your driveway, and you say,
oh.
Well, what happened to thetruck?
And he says, well, his mailboxesgot in the way.
Mm-hmm.
That, that's, it doesn't matterwho you give the keys to in our
(29:22):
state, it the, it's the samestory over and over.
It's just from a differentperspective.
Well, that's, that's my questionis, so,, what period of time do
you look at in history?
That shows us things were runproperly.
I, I don't even know.
I feel like that's kind of thenature of government.
That's kind of the nature ofabsolute power.
Corrupts absolutely.
Things get ridiculous when youget going.
But don't you feel like it'sbigger now than ever?
(29:44):
I have no idea.
Well, you know what?
I don't either.
You wanna know something, John?
I just messy It's not, it's not.
So the numbers are biggerbecause everything's bigger.
Yeah.
But it's always been this way,but nobody reported on it.
It's always my, well, that ispart of it.
I think social media and thefact that.
You've got all kinds of voicesthat are being heard that had
(30:05):
never been heard before.
Correct.
Only that's why I played thatclip.
Well, and we're going into a, anelection year.
Yeah.
Mid.
So, and again, what I will tellyou is there's one, one side of
this equation that doesn't wantto take responsibility for what
happened.
And you have the other side thatcouldn't be happier.
They couldn't be happier thatall this money went away.
Yeah.
(30:25):
That's, that's just not how ourpolitics should be.
We should be able to cometogether and, I mean, I have a,
a, a, I'll call it a simplesolution for stopping fraud
before it actually happens.
'cause here's the problem.
We are not catching this fraudbefore it happens.
They're doing an audit after thefact, and then they say, I think
we lost a hundred million, butit could be a billion, but we're
(30:47):
gonna try to claw some of itback.
How about we stop it before itactually happens?
And if we could use one of mypolicies and proposals would be
to leverage technology.
And we'll just use the Medicaremedicaid program that's
administered at the state level.
You know, there's both federalfunds and state funds that go
into that, but I just wanna usethat as the example.
(31:07):
You could leverage technology,and I'll use the the dirty word,
ai, and you could create aprogram, a closed program, lay
it over the Medicare, paymentsystem, create rules and norms.
When you don't see the rules andnorms it automatically, right.
Almost in real time.
Real time would say, Hey, wait,check this out.
(31:27):
And then it would, it doesn'treplace humans because then it
gets escalated humans and sentto an investigator.
Is that kind of like a Minnesotaversion of Doge?
No.
So no, that's not a, that's nota Doge.
In principle of governmentefficiency.
No, I know exactly what it was.
It was a wonderful thoughtprogram and a horribly executed
(31:47):
program.
Horribly.
You don't go in and with, youknow, we're gonna fire people
and it, it's not what you haveto do, and we don't have to do
that in Minnesota.
But to finish on this point, wecould leverage technology.
We could stop the bad fraudulentpayments going out and ensure
that the good payments go outfaster.
And it's over.
It's done.
We don't pay out billions ofdollars in fraudulent claims.
(32:11):
Yeah.
Right now the insurance industryis, is is using this for their
claims.
Yep.
They're using it right now.
It's being, yeah.
Why, why don't, why doesn't thesay but why don't we?
That's a good question.
Maybe because they don't want,want find it.
Don't, they don't.
Not only do they not wanna findit, but where's the money going?
Who's it going to?
I'm not a conspiracy theorist,but.
We could easily have figuredthis stuff.
(32:31):
It's the same.
We, we've had this everywhereand, you know, sorry.
One of the things, Mike, that, Iwould love to see a political
season and I think that you havean answer to this, that, uh,
politician focuses on what'sright about them as opposed to
what's wrong about theiropponent.
And you mentioned somethingabout the fact that there's a
(32:52):
way to do this.
Attacking the parties withoutattacking the people.
Yep.
And I think that that's a fairdistinction, that it's truly the
parties that are at fault.
It's not necessarily the people.
They're propped up by theparties.
There are so manywell-intentioned people that are
in both sides.
Government.
Yep.
In government and both sides.
(33:13):
But, and I, I think I said thisbefore we started the podcast.
I call it the political matrix.
We've all thought we've been incontrol of these parties in this
system, but the reality is we'rejust there to provide power to
the machines.
And I said, I don't blame peoplewho are still in it.
It's comfortable, it's familiar,and you're most likely sitting
(33:34):
next to your friends and family.
However, there is analternative.
There actually is an alternativewhere we don't serve the
government, the governmentactually serves us.
We don't serve the parties.
The parties should have beenserving us, but that's, I mean,
we deserve better.
No, we, Mike Newcomb 2026.
No, we do deserve better.
And yeah.
(33:54):
And I don't want this to becomea campaign commercial for you.
No, I know.
Go ahead, Steve.
In, in.
Your question was how do we, Iwanna specifically, yeah.
How do we do this withoutattacking individuals?
Yeah.
So I'm not going afterindividuals.
Like I said, I'm disappointed inour, our governor right now.
I'm disappointed in how ourstate's going and that's it.
But to call'em names, that'sjust a child.
(34:15):
Yeah.
And, and I wanna use oneexample, who's ever done that?
When, no, because who's evercalled people names?
When you call people names.
And you, you dehumanize them.
And it happens on both sides.
It's true.
People do hear that.
I kept hearing the term in theuh, 2016 election.
A dog whistle.
It's a dog whistle.
It's a dog whistle.
Well, guess what?
When you call people names andyou dehumanize them, it's a dog
(34:38):
whistle to people that aren'tnecessarily stable.
And those people take action.
And I will tell you when.
This just, this absolutelycrushed me When, Melissa Hortman
and her husband Oh yeah, yeah.
Were shot on the, on herdoorstep.
I never posted anything onFacebook remotely.
(34:59):
And that, not political, buteven remotely opinionated.
And my, my one post said, ourleaders need to turn down the
temperature now.
Yeah.
We need to turn the temperaturedown now.
Because that is a horrible thingand it's only gotten turned up.
No, and that's what's so funnybecause we had, oh, I'm sorry,
Steve, uh, let me, and let meget this one point, because we,
(35:21):
that question was asked tosomebody, Hey, we need to turn
it down and I'll use apolitician, and they said, oh
yeah, we need to turn it down.
We need to turn it down.
We'll turn it down.
Then two weeks later it's like.
They're full blast.
Oh yeah.
And I thought, well, there wego.
Mm-hmm.
So, sorry.
Go ahead, Steve.
No, no.
This is all super interesting.
I think you, you have, you'reonto something great and I think
this is, fits perfectly what wetalk about.
But if I wanna point it back tokindness for a second, I have a
(35:42):
question about kindness.
Um, kindness as strength, notweakness.
So some people think kindness inpolitics means being soft or
passive, especially Minnesotapeople, you're a nice Minnesota
guy.
How do we.
How do you see kindness in aform of strength and in
leadership?
How, how can you utilizekindness, uh, without looking
(36:04):
like passive?
Like we we're just a, you know,oh geez, what are we gonna do?
How are you using kindness as astrength?
Well, I think my personalitysays I'm not passive.
What?
So, oh, no, I mean, I just want,I mean, I, fully understand
your, question.
it's messaging I'll just tellyou, it was funny.
I, somebody sent me a, a clipand they said, Mike, you gotta
(36:26):
get on this.
You gotta, you gotta let'emknow.
And, and I said, I'm not goingto because I think your approach
is not civil.
And he says, civil doesn't goviral.
Good luck on your camp.
And that's, and that's kind ofmy point.
And he said, good luck on yourcamp Hot that you know you, how
are you gonna do this in a waythat comes through what you're
still keeping with your basis ofwhy can't civil go viral?
(36:47):
No.
And here's it.
Absolutely.
Can Jeff look at him over there?
He wants to tell Jeff I had thisone thought and if I don't spit
it out on have a say it.
I already lost it.
There we go.
I'm sorry.
Can let me play a sound clip bya guy named Jonathan Height?
And it might spur what you wereabout to say, but it's what
Steve, I think is getting at.
Yeah.
And this is an issue and I don'tknow how to solve it.
(37:08):
Play a clip.
The moderate majority heightsays is either exhausted or
intimidated.
It's what I called structuralstupidity.
That is you have very smartpeople, highly educated, highly
intelligent, but you put them ina situation in which dissent is
punished severely, and whathappens, they go silent.
(37:29):
And when?
When the moderates or whenanyone is afraid to question the
dominant view.
The organization, theinstitution gets stupid.
Hmm.
So we were talking a littleearlier before we hit record
just about there's extremes onboth ends.
Mm-hmm.
That are, that seem to begetting the megaphone.
And so then the smarter people,the more moderates I think where
(37:49):
they'd have the intelligentdialogue like you're proposing
with the brokering of the ideas,they get shut down or they don't
wanna speak up.
They're afraid.
And what I'm gonna tell you is Iwas afraid for 56 years, I was
in that camp and I, I laid inthe weeds and I sat back and I
said, I'm afraid, I'm not afraidanymore.
(38:10):
We have a broken system.
We have leaders that don'trepresent the people, and I'm
gonna stand up and I'm gonna saythere's a better way of doing
it.
Minnesota deserves better.
And, and how can you do it bybeing kind and civil without
showing weakness?
You know, during a crisis iswhen you always see people, they
(38:30):
say, oh boy, that person stoodup.
During that crisis, I'll use,president Bush standing on that
pile of rubble.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And he took that megaphone andhe grabbed it and he says, I,
you know, I, can you hear?
I can't hear you.
And you know, the guy yells outin the thing and he yells, uh,
you can't hear me, but thepeople who did this, they will
hear me.
And George Bush was never amacho man or an orator at, at
(38:53):
all.
He stumbled over his words quitea lot.
But my, my thing is, if, if, ifI can stand up and I can
actually look like an adult.
And don't throw childish namesat people and don't act like a
fool.
Mm-hmm.
I, I, I think being kind.
Is going to show that I am areal human being in that I have
(39:14):
credibility versus yelling andscreaming and calling names.
I think what we discovered toowith all of our, uh, nice versus
kind and all that kindnessactually is about being honest.
Yep.
That's how you make effectivemoves and make things happen
smartly and, uh, credibly andrespectfully to people because
it might hurt when you hear itwhen it's truth.
(39:35):
But it's truth.
It's truth.
You start, that's Steve.
There's a whole episode you guysdid on courage, and kindness is
courageous.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that is your, your podcastis courageous in and of itself
if you think about it, becausethere's a million other probably
podcasts you could do that mightbe a bit more popular.
I don't know about that.
How crappy the Vikings are.
Yeah.
(39:56):
You know, that is true.
Or you know, everything that'sbad with Minnesota podcast,
you'd probably have morelisteners, but so no, I'm, you
know.
No, you're right.
But you're doing something andyou're being courageous in what
you're doing.
It's just better standing up foreverybody.
There's course, there's, there'sbetter things out there to talk
about and to, to celebrate andlift up because we have
children, we have people, wehave responsibilities, and we
(40:17):
have thoughts about this greatstate and this great place that
we all live in.
We gotta try to.
We gotta try to say that when wehave team meetings, I always
like to say there's clowns tothe left of me, jokers to the
right.
Here I am stuck in the middlewith you clowns.
But we all mature.
And if I could Well, well, no, Imean, you knew.
I mean, if you go back to my,well, you've matured and No, and
I have, and my, I've matured andI've, my, my positions have
(40:39):
shifted over time.
But that comes through thematuration process.
My friends will sit here and go,oh boy, nukes.
Boy, he was a, he's a firebrand.
That guy will go off and, youknow, chewy to pieces.
Yeah, I did.
And then I grew up.
Yeah.
And then I realized there's adifferent way and then I
realized I get more done.
And I got married and I realizedI knew nothing.
And then I realized, how toactually compromise and work and
(41:02):
the best line my dad ever had wewould talk about my mother.
He says, Michael, I'm gonna giveyou one piece of advice.
And he was a real calm man.
He says, with your mother.
You could be right.
You could be happy.
I chose to be happy.
And, and that was, that's alittle true to it.
Yeah.
That's, I think that that's whywe're all still married.
(41:22):
Yeah.
Well, and I've, uh, in former,my former professional life, I
had a, a boss, uh, his name wasGreg Orman.
He actually ran for senate inKansas as an independent and
governor in Kansas.
As an independent, he's the sameage as me, but was.
Years ahead of me at 25 yearsold.
And at that time in my life, Iwas a, a great salesperson.
(41:45):
I mean, I was number, I was themillion dollar guy that could
every year.
Mm-hmm.
And he says, Mike, I gotta tellyou something.
He says, you're like a Ferrarion the auto bond when you're on
the road, baby.
But you're in the shop a lot andyou had to, I had to mature and
I had to, you know, and thatjust came through time.
So, sorry.
You were, you were like a highmaintenance P player.
He recognized your raw ability,you just raw ability as a sales
(42:08):
guy.
But I was an immature person andnow I'm, you're making a, I
think I've grown.
So I wanna address a couple ofintangibles that I think makes
Mike Newcomb.
We're gonna, you know, we'regonna stay in touch with you,
Mike, but a couple ofintangibles I, we're gonna
follow this path.
This is as it relates to MikeNewcomb for starters.
Fantastic head of hair.
Thank you.
Still a beautiful head of hair.
Here's the other thing, I wantyou to go on to the, uh, the
(42:30):
Mike Newcomb Facebook page.
Chiseled jawline.
He clearly has not been.
He's made for, made for a, whenI, when I had, when I had lunch
with him, you know, he orderedthe hamburger without the bun.
Oh.
So, you know, he is antis carbs.
He's, yeah.
You know, he took his shirt, he,he posts pictures of himself on
the, uh, Facebook without ashirt on and gets away with it.
(42:54):
No, I don't.
I've seen it.
Yes, you did.
Oh, there was.
Oh yeah, 4th of July, but it wasmore the guys behind me.
But the guys behind you lookpretty good too.
So apparently my boys, there areno carbs being delivered at the
Newcomb household.
One list.
No.
Um, but you know, in addition tothat, you do have an energy
about you that I think isinfectious.
I think that you have an abilityto tell a story or to make a
(43:17):
point in a fairly concise way.
That is well thought out.
I will agree with you that youhave matured incredibly from the
clown that we knew in highschool and college.
And college and college.
Yeah.
You know, you've made somechoices.
I was the first guy and last guyto leave a party.
You were, you.
You know what, you had fun, agood time.
(43:38):
Um, you were a Ferrari at thoseparties as well.
I was a Ferrari baby.
Well, and you're a citizen too,and it's inspiring for me to see
that.
There are citizens gettingcourageous enough, you said
that, you know, I was sittingback in the weeds and now I'm
gonna decide and do somethingabout, and I think we need more
of that.
Yes, I agree.
And I'll add to that, I actuallydon't trust someone who hasn't
lived.
I want know about someone who'slived a little bit.
(43:59):
Absolutely.
I mean, here's what's very, I'mnot the perfect people.
You gotta enjoy your life.
Well, you're gonna trust whatthose decides are.
Yeah.
I mean, you have to.
Exactly.
No, but to to, to your point.
I mean, you're a person that's,you know, you've had success in
business.
Frankly, I, I think the, youknow, the fact that you're
pledging some of your own moneyin a significant amount Yes.
Is probably a differentiatorfrom some of the people that
(44:19):
are, uh, that are runningagainst you.
I will just say that,, thecurrent governor, other than
when he was working as a, uh,teacher mm-hmm.
He hasn't really had, he's neverreally run a business.
He's never really run anythingtrue.
I think that the time is rightfor a third party person in the
(44:40):
state of Minnesota.
What the left has done has beenfinancially a disaster.
And that is a fact.
Yeah.
You know, some of the socialprograms that they've come up
with might be great, but there'sall the fraud.
And a Republican I just don'tthink is ever going to win in
the state of Minnesota.
Uh, just because of the natureof the way that people vote,
(45:03):
however, it's like JesseVentura, when Jesse Ventura run
for g ran for governor, I don'tthink in a million years he ever
thought that he was gonna win.
I bet you he went to bed thenight of the election and when
he woke up the next morning, hewas like, what I, what?
I have to put a cabinettogether.
Yeah.
And, and you know, I have to getrid of my crazy hair and.
(45:27):
But again, there is anopportunity to shock the world.
And, the list of people that Iknow that have the capacity to
do it is very small.
And for whatever reason, Mike, Ithink you're the right guy right
now.
Thank you.
Now, well, and I'll, I'll endmy, the political talk on this
is, I am well aware of theuphill battle that I'm gonna
(45:51):
have.
Oh, it's so unlikely you wouldwin.
Right now I'm at less than ahalf a percent, and I'm okay
with that because, you know,they'll never see me coming, and
that's okay because I, I'm goodwith that.
But what I would ask people is,follow me.
Give me the opportunity to earnyour support.
Look at what I'm running on.
(46:11):
Look at what my priorities willbe.
I call a mission statement.
'cause in business we always hada mission statement.
Mm-hmm.
Just a simple declaration of whowe are and what we stood for.
I'll go to my website, it's notquite ready for prime time, but
it's getting better and it'sjust nuku for governor.com.
Check it out, give me time.
Over the next 12 months, I mightgrow on you.
(46:33):
I'm gonna stay true to thiscause I am putting my own money
in there.
But I also want people to knowI'm not.
The rich butthead that's justthrowing his money in and doing
it right.
I owned a cleaning company.
We cleaned 17,000 homes a year.
For the first three years, I didevery single cleaning.
(46:53):
Yeah.
I, I'll guarantee you, some ofmy customers will listen to you.
You 17,000 homes a year?
You did?
No, the business did.
Oh.
But for the first three years,the, the math doesn't make
sense.
No, no.
Okay.
You're, you're fast.
Uh, not that fast.
Well, we had 80, 80 full-timeteam members at that time, but
for the first three years Istarted with one van.
(47:14):
One mop bucket in one vacuum,and it was Mike Newcomb.
Yeah.
And my motto was, I went fromthe boardroom to the bathroom
and it smells a lot better inhere.
But it, uh, yes.
I'm, I'm putting my money intothis campaign because I want
other Minnesotans to say, Hey,if he's putting in his own
money, maybe we can help himout.
Yeah.
I'm not asking for that helpyet, but that, that time will
(47:35):
come.
But I, what my point was, is,uh, you know, I'm not the
billionaire who's throwing hismoney around for a vanity deal.
This money's gonna hurt.
I'm gonna have to figure outsomewhere down the line how to
hopefully re replace it.
Yeah.
This is part of, and my wifesays, you know, this is our
retirement money, Mike.
And I said, I know, but this isa good cause, Marie.
And she says, I'm with you.
There are things about running acampaign.
(47:58):
And if it's a campaign thatreally emphasizes truly kindness
and compassion, but thoughtful,smart compassion, it's hard to,
to, to argue with that.
Mm-hmm.
And I do think that that couldbe a differentiator, because
there's just not enough of thatin politics right now.
(48:20):
I, I hope so.
Now.
Yeah.
There's none there.
There's.
There's attempts.
It, it's so strange.
My, my dad served in thelegislature from 1964 to 1973,
and when he ran.
There was no party designation.
He ran as Tom Newcomb from WhiteBear Lake.
Wow.
That was his party designation.
(48:41):
Yeah.
Then when he would get to the,to the, uh, house floor, you'd
have to caucus with the liberalor the conservatives, and Wendy
Anderson, Wendell Anderson, thegovernor at the time, wanted the
DFL party to have moreprominence and that's when he
said, now we're gonna have partydesignators while running.
My dad retired.
He said, I'm isn't, isn't.
(49:01):
Isn't that the guy that when aSenate seat opened, he appointed
himself as the senator?
The greatest political travestyin the history of Minnesota,
Minnesota was when GovernorWendell Anderson appointed
himself into Walter Mondale'sseat when he became vice
president and he destroyed whatwas the most promising.
(49:22):
Political career, politicalcareer, ever.
This was the ex Olympian.
He was the most, I have the Timemagazine at my house with him on
the cover of it, MinnesotaFishing, and he, he did that to
himself and my dad said, poorWendy, what a shame, because
back then my, you know, they'dget off the floor and, and
they'd all go to Kelly's, whichwas over in the Holiday Inn.
(49:42):
And my dad said, well, we'd alltalk, we'd all have a beer.
No one.
There was no fighting like this.
It was the, the Democrats andRepublicans, they all said, eh,
good, good time on the floor.
Glad you got your bill through.
Hey, good job, Tom.
Yeah, my dad, bless him, isrolling over in his grave to see
right now that they can't evensit in the same room together.
Yeah.
Well, I asked my my dad thattoo, if, if there was any kind
of division like there was, andhe said, not at all.
(50:04):
No way.
Well, back to what you weresaying, maybe before we started
talking on the, on the podcast,Mike.
Yeah.
Is that, that, that they wereable to do that?
And have a beer together andtalk.
'cause ultimately they're both,they're all working towards the
better, exactly.
The better thing, which isworking government and people
getting what they need.
No, yeah.
And I use the example of, soI've spent time in boardrooms
and in going into a boardroom,there's the CEOC, F-O-C-I-O.
(50:28):
Everybody, yo, yo, yo and themanagers, and they all have
different agendas.
They want headcount, they needmoney for their programs, but
they have one objective to makethe company better.
And when they go in and theydon't get exactly what they
wanted, it didn't matter becausethey all came in with the same
goals and objectives, make thecompany better.
So they'd leave and be like, ohyeah, well good job.
(50:50):
You got your, you know, sixpeople in your department and I
got none, but we're gonna makethe company better.
That's not how it is.
At our capital, they don't havethe same goals and objectives.
And then therefore, when youdon't come in to say, we have to
do what's right for thecitizenry, we have to spend
their money wisely.
We have to be good stewards ofour taxpayers dollars when they
(51:13):
don't have those same objectivesand goals.
That's why we have a, a warground there because it's one
side lost.
In the other side won.
Right?
Where, what it should be is Ididn't get exactly what I
wanted, but we all won becausethe goals and objectives were
met.
Really appreciate you coming in.
Uh, this has been terrific.
Yeah, it's exciting.
(51:34):
It's exciting to, to know youand know you're jumping into
this.
It'd be fun to see what happens.
And, uh, all the best of luck toyou, Mike.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
And thank you.
And thanks for coming in, Mike.
It's been great.
And with that, off we go, playthe tune.
(51:59):
Bye-bye.
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